Olympic gold medalist Dorothy Hamill seems like someone who has it all.

Known as "America's Sweetheart," Hamill won both the gold in figure skating in 1976 and lucrative contracts endorsing such products as Clairol shampoo (her short and sassy haircut set a new style trend), married the handsome actor Dean Paul Martin (son of Dean Martin) and as a pro, was paid big bucks to perform in the Ice Capades.

But depression isn't about having it all or not having anything. The mood disorder can attack anyone whether on top of the world or not.

Hamill recounts how depression impacted her in her book "A Skating Life: My Story" (Hyperion 2007).

"I would describe it as I'd be sitting there having a conversation," says Hamill about those years when sadness seemed to be the only constant in her life. "Everything would be fine and then I would just be in tears. I'd have uncontrollable tears. I would be in my car and I sometimes just wanted to drive into a wall and be done with it."

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, major depression and dysthymia (a mood disorder that is less severe than depression but tends to be chronic) impacts twice as many women as men no matter what their racial, ethnic or economic backgrounds. The same two to one ratio has been recorded in 10 other countries as well.

Hamill says her whole family struggled with depression, and even achieving her dream of winning the Olympics, something she had been preparing for since first hitting the ice at age 8, wasn't enough to fight the demons.

"When you have that goal and you have that dream and it actually happens, you think that it would be a switch," says Hamill, whose parents lived in Gary where her father worked in the mills a few years before she was born. "And that all of a sudden, you'd feel like an Olympic champion. And I didn't feel any different."

Depression can be so overwhelming that just getting up in the morning is an almost unendurable chore, she says.

A variety of factors that are unique to women most likely play a role in why females develop depression more easily than males, according to NIMH. These include reproductive, hormonal, genetic and/or other biological factors such as abuse and oppression, and certain psychological and personality characteristics.

For Hamill, getting well meant seeing a therapist and taking medication. As difficult as depression can be, it is an illness that can be managed with the right help, she says.

Hamill notes that she needs to monitor and be on the lookout for "the dip" in feelings that indicates she is sinking back into a depression. But overall, she is positive.

"I'm at a comfortable place in my life," she says.